Official apathy kills Nirbhaya project
Most Nirbhaya homes in state remain overcrowded, lack facilities
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: It was on July 4 an abuse victim lodged in the Nirbhaya Home in the capital had committed suicide in the bathroom. The other end of the shawl the girl had used as her noose was tied to the steel rod of the ventilation on top of the wall. The Home authorities, scared that other emotionally unstable girls might try to imitate the act, has been repeatedly writing to the Nirbhaya Cell to remove the steel rods and cover the ventilation with a mesh. There has been no response so far.
The Nirbhaya project, which was launched in 2012 after the Delhi gang rape, is as good as dead. Members of the State Commission for the Protection of Child Rights had visited the home in the capital right after the suicide and, reportedly enraged by what they saw, had ordered the social justice director to urgently make a visit and set things right. Even a month after the directive, the social justice director is yet to make a visit.
The home has two buildings, and both are overflowing; one houses 38 victims and the other 40, a total of 78 inmates. Each of these buildings cannot hold more than 25, even this number would be suffocating. Psychologists who had visited the homes have pointed out that lack of space can seriously unsettle volatile minds. The Child Rights Commission itself was exposed to the plight of the inmates. “The space was so congested that inmates are forced to sleep on the floor, crammed against each other,” it had noted in its order.
In fact, the Home authorities were promised that at least 14 of the inmates would be shifted to a home in Kollam. These 14 girls were from Kollam district, and it would have been easier for their parents to meet them if they were lodged in a home in Kollam. But no such Home was opened in Kollam. The Commission also discovered the absence of psychiatrists, counsellors, psycho-therapists and caretakers. It noted that there was only a part-time clinical psychologist to look after the emotional needs of the nearly 80 traumatised girls now staying in these homes.